Loyola University • New Orleans • Volume 98 • Issue 1 • August 16, 2019
THE MAROON For a greater Loyola
A sea of freshmen
Tetlow provides finance update Diverse freshmen, financial probation are at the front of the president's mind By Rose Wagner rmwagner@my.loyno.edu @rosemwagner
Incoming freshmen and their family members attend a Wolf Pack Welcome orientation in Roussel Hall on Aug. 14., 2019. The first-year class is one of the largest in recent years and has led to discussions about expanding and altering on-campus housing options. Michael Bauer/The Maroon.
Class size prompts housing scramble By Emma Ruby eeruby@my.loyno.edu @emmaeruby
As freshmen have begun the move-in process, there is one thing the winding line for a Biever elevator has made abundantly clear: the all-freshman residence hall is at capacity. Nathan Ament, Chief Enrollment Officer for the university, said the school expects to welcome 840 first-year students for the upcoming semester. The large enrollment numbers have pushed the undergraduate student population to 2,883, the highest number since 2013. “Despite Loyola's challenges over the last year, prospective student interest increased and there was a significant buzz around President Tetlow and her new leadership,” Ament said. The freshman class is 78 students larger than last year’s fall freshman class, according to Ament. To accommodate the large number of students, Biever Hall has transformed all 100 odd-numbered rooms into triple occupancies, something that was started last fall, leading to larger numbers of students on each floor than what has been standard in previous
years. Chandler Boudreaux, finance sophomore, is a residential adviser on the sixth floor of Biever and said he is responsible for 52 residents. “There’s about six more residents than normal on my floor,” Boudreaux said. He added that residential life implemented policies to prepare for the large number of students moving in. “The elevators are not a free-for-all this year,” Boudreaux said. “Move-in has also been spread out through the entire week before classes, and the result is more efficient.” According to University President Tania Tetlow, there have been minor setbacks in housing all students who applied for on-campus housing due to the large class size, but she expects solutions to be found. “There is one (freshman) student we are still waiting to place, and I’m sure that we will,” Tetlow said in a meeting with The Maroon staff Wednesday. “We were also able to offer housing to upperclass students who wanted it and we are down to about 11 on a waitlist. Almost every upperclass student who requested housing also got it.”
Krewe leaders dance for and entertain incoming freshmen during a Wolf Pack Welcome event on Aug. 14, 2019. The freshman class of about 840 students is 10% larger than last year's, according to University President Tania Tetlow. Michael Bauer/The Maroon.
According to Tetlow, the number of freshmen who commited to Loyola was lower than last year’s first-year class until the last minute, which has led to the last minute search for empty spaces. Throughout the summer, sophomores received two emails from residential life offering housing “cancellation lotteries” that allowed students to cancel their housing and move off campus without penalty in order to free up dorm space. “It came down to making space for the bigger first year class,” Tetlow said. “We are at the place where we are actively looking into whether we should build another residence hall. We are running out of room.” According to Tetlow, the university has enough capacity in classrooms and enough parking spaces for the growing undergraduate population, so residential living is what is being addressed as
freshmen classes continue to grow. Admissions received 5,858 applications for fall 2019, Ament said. That number was a 5% increase of applications received for fall 2018, which was an 8% increase over fall 2017. Ament’s takeaway: this growth is not random or a fluke. That is why Tetlow said that the idea of a new residence hall being built is “more than abstract,” it is being discussed. “There are 50 balls in the air to figure out how to make it happen, but that is my goal,” Tetlow said. “I think it would be good for us to have another residence hall.” Tetlow also shut down any rumors of sophomores eventually being allowed to live off campus. “We love having students live on campus,” she said. “It creates community, it's
safer, it engages you all in what we do here.”
Amid the influx of a large and diverse freshman class and the decision on Loyola's financial probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools fast approaching, University President Tania Tetlow sat down with the staff of The Maroon to discuss the status of the university for the upcoming year. Financial Probation In December of 2018, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges placed Loyola on financial probation in order to monitor the university's budget which had accumulated a significant amount of debt in previous years. The board of the association will vote on whether Loyola is in the clear financially or should undergo another year of probation in December, according to Tetlow, who said she has "cautious optimism" about the university's financial situation. Tetlow explained that it is incredibly unlikely the university will lose its accreditation from the association. "It's sort of like when you need a doctor to do surgery on a broken wrist and he has to tell you you could die," Tetlow said. "But no, I am not worried about it." Tetlow said the university finished the 2018-2019 school year with a balanced budget and projects the same for the upcoming school year, with higher revenue. However, she said the university is in need of more sources of revenue or a reorganized budget, considering that the debt is structured to increase by $1 million annually. "We need more room for air," Tetlow said. The New Freshman Class The incoming first-year class is the most diverse in the history of Loyola, with 55% of freshmen being students of color and 32% being first-generation college students. Tetlow said the 840-person class was somewhat surprising and exciting. "This was a really brutal year for liberal arts colleges, for Catholic schools, for universities like ours nationally, a lot of them went backwards," Tetlow said. "And on a year we were put on probation we were up 10% over last year. That is an amazing thing." Tetlow expressed excitement about the new class but said that because of the university's tight financial situation, Loyola has to get creative about finding ways to allocate resources to the new incoming freshmen.